1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a storage system management method, a storage system, a switch, and a storage medium having a program recorded thereon.
2. Description of the Related Art
Due to the recent development in the IT industry and progress in Internet technology, the amount of data being exchanged on networks is rapidly increasing. With this increase in data amount, a need has arisen to enlarge the capacity of storage devices that are provided for storing data. In order to fulfill such a need, large-capacity storage devices, such as disk array devices that have a multitude of physical devices (e.g., magnetic disks), have been contrived.
The physical drives that are installed in a disk array device may each have different performances, such as disk capacity and response time. A way of efficiently using the overall resources of such a storage device is disclosed, for example, in Japanese Patent Application Laid-open Publication No. JP-07-295890-A. The reference discloses a method for comparing, in a single storage device, the performance of each physical drive (“disk device”) and the access performance of each of the access paths between a host computer and each of the disk devices, and storing data in a disk device that matches the access performance.
In order to store and manage a large amount of data using the Internet, so-called iDCs (Internet data centers) are recently gaining popularity. In an iDC, a storage system is built by connecting a plurality of storage devices across an appropriate network such as a SAN (storage area network). Currently, there is a great demand for a technique that enables efficient and effective use of the all of resources in such a system. However, the method according to JP-07-295890-A discloses only a method of sharing resources in a single storage device and does not disclose a way of sharing resources throughout the whole system so that the resources can be used across ports and/or storage devices.
An object of the present invention is to provide a way of efficiently using the resources of a storage system.